You Can Train Your Brain to Make Better Impulse Decisions

In a world of hot and cold decision-making, things have really heated up in the past decade.

As Steven Cotler and Jamie Wheal explain at Forbes, hot cognition is a term used to describe the making of snap, impulse decisions without aid of a longer assessment period. Hot cognition involves an emotional factor in the face of high risk and pressure. Cold cognition, on the other hand, involves making calculated, pragmatic, and emotionless decisions.

Cotler and Wheal make an important note about the faults of hot cognition, which they say is now invoked much more prevalently than in years past:

"But here’s the thing—because hot cognition is automatic, it is often subject to bias and thus prone to error. We’ve been making more and more of these errors lately and they’ve been sending shockwaves through our society and economy."

Social media in general has rushed the decision times for entities facing difficult decisions -- just look at how sloppily certain NFL entities have performed lately with regard to player suspensions. Luckily, you don't have to be resigned to making dumb moves in the spur of the moment. That's because hot cognition can be trained through "risk rehearsals." For adventurous types, extreme and action sports such as snowboarding, surfing, and skydiving will pump the necessary adrenaline needed for decision test runs. For those a little more risk-averse, it's been found that the hot cognition can improve for players of video games such as first-person shooters that reward a heightened ability for impulse decisions.

The key is in placing yourself in tense situations and being cognizant of how you react. Sharpen these skills under test conditions and you'll be better off for it when the real crunch time begins.